


Companions and Eventualities 6 -- Anniversaries

by Viola_Laterra



Series: Companions and Eventualities [6]
Category: Enderal (Video Game)
Genre: Anniversary, Brave New World Ending, During Canon, F/F, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Other, Polyamorous Character, Post-Canon, Spoilers for Brave New World ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:53:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viola_Laterra/pseuds/Viola_Laterra
Summary: Exploring the Star City reminds the Prophet of another moment with a dear companion.(Takes place a year after the Brave New World ending)
Relationships: Jespar Dal'Varek/Prophet | Prophetess, Prophet | Prophetess/Calia Sakaresh
Series: Companions and Eventualities [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809244
Kudos: 8





	Companions and Eventualities 6 -- Anniversaries

"Now, *that* is something." The awe in Jespar's voice was a little surprising to me. I supposed it shouldn't have been; all this time in the Starling city had given him a new appreciation for their culture and technology. The Jespar I had first met would never have been so reverent about this kind of thing, but then... that Jespar had not died and been brought back, had not played a key role in trying to break humanity out of a vicious Cycle, and had not spent a year living in a city above the clouds with technology vastly superior to what we'd known down on the surface.

And what we were looking at... really *was* something. We'd been exploring a new area of the city, one we hadn't been able to gain access to before. A recent breakthrough in our understanding of the technology, and our ability to repair the city's systems, had allowed us to open a door that had been locked for a long time. And we had apparently found the technology that was keeping the city in the sky... in the sky.

I knew this on sight because I recognized it from the star ship we'd taken here, back before the Cleansing. Only here there was an even larger glowing sphere, with an even larger body of water underneath it. An even larger area of garden -- which I realized, now that I was looking at it, could also provide food for the inhabitants of the city.

Jespar had stopped just inside the door, marveling at the cavernous space and its contents. I laughed and stepped up behind him, putting my hands on his arms and gently but bodily moving him out of the way so I could enter the room as well.

He started a little; apparently he'd been even more mesmerized by the sight than I realized. "Sorry," I said. "You were sort of in the way." Jespar shook his head at me. "How are you not totally floored by this?" He gestured at the cavern in front of us.

I smiled at him. "I am. It's much larger than the one that powered the Gertrude." We both laughed a little at the name. I added, "If I think about how much mass it's holding up, though, I would bet there are several of these throughout the city." It was fortunate that I'd spent so much of my time on Enderal working with various Starlings on various projects... it meant that I had a better understanding of the way things worked up here. Of course, both Jespar and I had learned more about Starling technology since we'd arrived than many people had managed in a lifetime on Enderal. Jespar didn't take to it as quickly as I did, but he was learning, just the same. So though I'd just thought through the math quickly in my head, he was likely to believe me not just out of trust but also from his own knowledge, too.

And Jespar did nod back at me. "I imagine you're right." Then he fell silent again, taking in the sight of the giant glowing sphere. I said, "Did you not get a look at the ship's power source, back then?" Jespar eyed me slyly. "No, I did not," he said. "You may recall I was pretty busy with something else that night." I laughed, remembering our first night together. "That was pretty memorable, in fact," I said. "Maybe not quite as spectacular as this, but... not bad," and I looked him up and down.

He chuckled and leaned in to kiss me. I found myself more than a little interested in doing something further about how it was making me feel, but after a few moments, Jespar picked up on that and broke out of the kiss. "Let's finish exploring here first, huh? Plenty of time for that later this evening when we make camp." This part of the city was far enough from our current base of operations that we'd planned to spend the night here. I sighed and nodded wistfully at him, and joined him in planning an exploration pattern that would cover the most ground in the shortest time.

Later that evening, after our task was complete, we made camp and ate a meal. I'd been experimenting with how long I could go without food; my body might not age, but it still required rest and fuel, I'd found -- now, for instance. Though I could go longer than Jespar could without eating and not suffer the same ill effects, it was good to know what the limits were of being fleshless.

Jespar finished his food and dusted off his hands, then leaned back on his elbows, stretching his legs out in front of him. He said, "It's hard to believe it's been almost a year." I nodded, still chewing.

He looked over at me. "You know, though the weather never changes up here... the light does. And I can tell, walking around out there... the light is the same as it was, that first time we came here."

I nodded. He was right -- I had noticed it too. A certain low slant to the afternoon sun... not so unlike it had looked, when he'd called it the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

I swallowed the last bite of dinner and said to him, "Then this marks an anniversary for us." Jespar chuckled good-naturedly at me. "That it does," he said. "Shall we make the most of it?" He raised a hand to brush a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. "Please," I said.

We knew each other infinitely better than we had then; and we were in no rush, as we had been then. So it was a great deal later that night that we finally stretched out with bedrolls and actually attempted to sleep. It was really something, I thought to myself, as I curled up around Jespar, threading an arm around his waist and tucking my knees up behind his... having this relationship, even with everything else that had happened. My last thoughts before drifting off to sleep were of simple gratitude for this one thing that had gone right.

But as I slept, other memories surfaced.

"Sa'Ira, isn't it beautiful?" I stood next to Calia, looking out into the mechanical space underneath the ship, and nodded mutely. She sighed and then began walking down to the water's edge. I followed her, just taking in the exotic vegetation and the shining, clear water, strange streamers of which rose up from the water's surface and wrapped themselves around the glowing, slowly rotating blue sphere.

She started to explain to me about it, and all I could think of was how beautiful she looked, illuminated by the unearthly glow... and when Kurmai almost caught us down there, and Calia became almost impish, running and hiding and dragging me along with her... well. As we hid together, around the corner from where he could see us... all I could think of was how close she was, how she smelled like something spicy... how much I wanted to touch her.

Jespar had apologized, eventually, for what he'd said to me in the Silver Cloud, but the damage had been done. I didn't need to seek a relationship with someone who could be so hurtful, even if it had been out of his own deep suffering. This world was bad enough without taking that from your partner. And Calia had... I don't know. Something in her had become calmer in the last week or so. 

That said, I was unprepared for her hysterical laughter as she contemplated how strange it was to be playing hide and seek with the end of the world upon us. But she said she hoped that we would win, and that she could keep living. That there was so much she still wanted to do. She said she'd come to terms with the terrible part of her that she had hated so much for as long as she could remember. 

And when I asked her if I was a part of her future plans, and she said yes, if I wanted to be... my heart leapt, and then, when she stepped close to me, I had to try desperately to hold myself back, knowing she likely hadn't been intimate with anyone in really any way before... I wanted so much to show her all the things she had to look forward to. I wanted to show her how much she meant to me.

So I stepped forward, carefully slid my arms around her, and very gently leaned in to kiss her. She was tentative at first, clearly trying to see how it felt, how it affected her. Probably checking, I thought, to see how it affected her control over her demon side.

But as we continued, it became clearer and clearer that she wouldn't have any trouble with that, because she became more and more ardent, and began to explore a little all on her own, without any prompting from me. We took our time, that night, and even though there were moments when I wanted very much to push harder, the lovemaking was still deeply satisfying.

When she told me, the next morning, that she'd only once before had feelings like this for someone, and that the only reason this had been possible was because we'd grown close over a longer period of time... I just felt grateful that we'd had this opportunity. Happy that even with all that was going wrong around us, we had managed to come to this point together, and at least she'd had this experience before whatever was going to happen with the Cycle was going to happen.

And when we stood together below the Sun Temple, and I saw the Cleansing hit her, even though I asked her what she would do, and she said she would try to save the other people alive right now in Vyn... I couldn't bear the thought of losing her, after everything we'd been through.

So we'd fled to the Star City together. I know she was never fully happy with that decision, but we talked about it a lot in that first year. Struggling to survive, trying to grapple with the fact that I wasn't strictly human anymore... though neither was she, for that matter.

And tonight we'd discussed the folly of the Black Guardian's assumption that somehow he (or I) could shape humans to be beyond negative emotions.

Laying together, warmed by the fire we'd built and eaten at, curled up under our blankets, gazing out at that even larger copy of the blue sphere that kept Starling technology in the air and had illuminated our first night together, a year ago... Calia shifted against me and said, "It just seems to me that we all have our own demons, even if mine are... more insistent than other people's."

I murmured assent, stroking her hair. "He accused Arantheal of ego, of needing to be the leader who saved everyone... but what was he proposing but to do the same thing himself? Just from inside an enormous mechanical body," I mused.

She nodded against me and said, "People can be good and they can be bad. They have selfish impulses and compassionate impulses. I don't think you could ever completely get rid of one or the other." She was silent for a while, but then continued: "I do think that the High Ones make it worse. The human tendency for cruelty, I mean. So there is an unfair advantage to that side of things, as the Cycle gets to the point where they are most powerful. And add in the effect of Emissaries..."

I sighed. It was still so hard to accept the fact that I'd played my part so flawlessly for the High Ones. Calia squeezed my hand and said, "Only that they are having an even stronger effect, through that. And remember, it wasn't just you. Arantheal was the one who pressed the button."

She had reminded me of this over and over again in the last year. That though I had partial responsibility for what had happened during the Cleansing, I had been manipulated, and that I hadn't been the only one being pushed and pulled by the High Ones. She wouldn't let me forget my role, or my choice to come to the Star City, but she also wouldn't let me fall into despair or hopelessness about it. It echoed how she felt about her own demon side, I thought. You take responsibility, but you don't let it crush you.

I nodded and said, "It is true that I found out too late what my true situation was. I still wonder why the Veiled Woman didn't send me to the Black Guardian earlier."

Calia was silent for a while. Eventually she said, slowly and speculatively, "Well, she's talked about evening the scales, right? If she'd sent you to the Black Guardian earlier, you might have been able to stop the Cleansing. Maybe that would have tipped the scales too much in the direction of the humans? Instead, she's allowed you to survive the Cleansing, and be a new player in the next Cycle. That seems like a smaller kind of change."

"Could be," I said. "If there were people involved who could balance out the Emissaries of the next Cycle, maybe that would shift things?" I turned onto my side, and Calia curled up around me, wrapping an arm across my chest. I kissed her hand where she'd tucked it up under my chin and said, "Assuming they can't still manipulate me, when it all happens again."

Calia sighed into my neck. "But you've told me you never felt compelled, other than feeling more strongly about helping others, once you had the power to do so. That they only ever spoke to you and said things that swayed you -- that they didn't directly control you. Now that you know the truth about them, and about yourself, and about the Cycle... they can't manipulate you the same way, can they?"

I thought about it for a while. I said, "You're probably right... unless they were controlling me in some subtle way I couldn't feel. I suppose there's no way to know, until they're strong enough again."

She nodded. "Anyway, there's nothing to stop you from trying to influence people to be kinder, more compassionate... it's how you were, when we met. It's why I fell in love with you, over time." 

I laughed a little and gave her arm a squeeze. "Yes. Of course I think it's worth encouraging that kind of thing. But I'm sure you're right -- surely that wouldn't be enough to really oppose the High Ones. And it's just ego that would make one think you could."

Calia kissed my neck and said, "So just stay humble, Sa'Ira." Something about the way she said it -- some mix of admiration, gratitude, and just a touch of scolding -- reminded me of all we'd been through, and how much I loved her. I turned over to face her, dark eyes just in front of mine, breath mingling. I said softly, "I will. Thank you for believing in me." She smiled and kissed me and said, "You're welcome." And then we shifted around and fell asleep.

When I woke the next morning, and it was Jespar wrapped around me, and I remembered that Calia had been taken in the Cleansing... the first thing I felt was a flood of deep, deep grief. In this eventuality, she had mattered very much to me, even if we had never pursued physical intimacy or romance. And I recalled the last time I'd seen her: laying there at the top of the temple, slowly fading as the High Ones extracted her mind and spirit... She'd said it was nice to feel that there might be hope, even if this Cleansing couldn't be stopped. But, thinking of the twisted grey bodies that the last Cleansing had left in the City of a Thousand Floods... imagining that she would look that way now... well, I tried not to wake Jespar, but between the tears I couldn't keep back, and the little sobs, soon he shifted against me and sighed.

"More dreams?" he asked me softly.

I turned and let him wrap his arms around me, burrowing my head into his chest and nodding. He stroked my hair and said to me, "It's been a while since you've woken in tears. What was this one about?"

I eventually choked out, "C-Calia." "Ah," he said. "I know how important to you she was. She was alive, in the eventuality you saw?"

I nodded again. And then he just held me as the sobs died down. After a while I said quietly, "It was a world in which she came with me, instead of you." 

"Ah," he said, silent for a moment. Then: "Do you... do you wish you'd brought her instead?" He tried to sound cavalier about it; Jespar, even after all our experiences, was still trying to leave a light touch on the world, to only tie himself to things that truly mattered to him. But I could hear in his voice the uncertainty that belied his attempt to be casual. And I knew I was one of the few things that did truly matter to him. 

I sat up and gazed down at him, laying there. Beautiful, and good-natured, and sometimes a little prickly, even now, and at the moment, very vulnerable. Did I regret bringing him with me, here? Not for a moment. So I said, "No, I don't." He nodded, trying to hide his relief. I added: "But... I do miss her." He reached up to stroke my arm and said, "I understand." I clasped his free hand in both of mine, and we sat like that for a little while. Eventually he said, "You know I wouldn't have begrudged your relationship with her, if things had been different." I nodded; after all, he'd been the one to say we could pursue whoever else we wanted. 

But then Jespar sighed and took his hands back, shifting around to sit up. He said to me, "Shall we see what else we can learn about this technology that keeps us in the air?" I nodded, and smiled, and we got up and made ready to explore. To start another day. To keep moving forward, somehow.


End file.
